What disturbs me is the statement that marriage is not a right, it's a privilege. I would put this statement on equal ground with China's "one child rule". When you look at marriage in a "right" vs "privilege" context, I believe it falls squarely in the "right" category.

Thomas Jefferson included in the Declaration of Independence as man's inalienable rights; "The pursuit of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". I think it can be reasonably argued that whom you choose to marry, the profession you choose, whether to have children or not (or how many) would all fall within the "Pursuit of Happiness". These are areas of personnel choice that the government should never intervene.

Catholic education destroys children's minds, but a few escape before the damage is irreversible.

Three hundred years of tyrannical government accustomed Germans to obedience and it took the damage inflicted during World War Two to turn them against their tyranny. The damage pedophile priests do is increasing the number of American Catholics who turn against their tyranny. I've heard that hundreds of Catholic schools and churches have closed.

Have you heard the TV ads asking fallen-away Catholics to return "home"?

People thought Bush was too stupid and too extreme so could not wind up as the President. I don't know - some of the older voters who supported bush are dead, and the next generation is moving into place. Will that mean more involvement by people who are less accepting of authoritarianism? Hard to say..

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I would not take anything for granted. His views have not hurt him so far. These views have given him a soap box. Others had that soap box and fell off, but at least some of them (Perry, Bachmann, Palin) are much less polished than Santorum.

Perry, Santorum, Romney, Gingrich, et al., pander to the one great motivator that's guaranteed to garner votes from the older, mostly white, active voters. The motivator is fear. And, it works. Fear of muslims, fear of gays, fear of non-whites, fear of foreigners. and fear of non-heterosexual and non-monogamous people.

Here's a question. Quickly think of those things these candidates are against. Not too hard, is it? Now, think of some positives they are in favor of, that does not demonize others. Not so easy, is it?

Selling fear works. It worked for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 with his TV ads showing a little girl picking daisies followed by a nuclear detonation, with the warning not to vote for Goldwater. It works for religions that sell fear of death. And, it works in US politics today with the demonization of anyone who does not fit the Ward, June, Wally and the Beaver picture of America.